The Rajasthan of the writer Ronaldo Menéndez

The sounds, colors, smells, tastes and images of the world seem to swirl in

India

.

There life opens up like the great stage from which everything is scanned, or almost everything.

It was the last destination of the writer

Ronaldo Menéndez's

journey

after 12 months through Cuba, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia, again Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia and, finally, India.

This last stop begins one day at six in the morning when in

New Delhi

From the window of a friend's house, she watches her friends Tere and Erika get out of the taxi.

"We were going to cross the Rajasthan region, and he kept asking myself and Natalia: Is there any other Cuban who has traveled so much?", He recalls.

Well, when he was 25 years old, back in 1995, Menéndez "lived badly obsessed with the idea of ​​never being able to leave Cuba."

A bad dream that he has conjured with trips and more trips that he evokes in his

storybook

Pushkin's granddaughter

(Foam Pages)

.

Now one of those realities that he turned into self-fiction literature and more literary genres, in the

Rajasthan express

story

, brings him back to the real world to serve as a guide for that last stop on that journey.

The first time he passed through Delhi "only as a stopover to continue by land to other destinations."

His impression of India was "almost apocalyptic."

“

Kolkata

, intricate streets and the search for a backpacker hostel, bunches of crows on the power lines, people in rags, some hell of a traffic, and the monsoon rain started to fall.

Suddenly, everything was mixing and flowing in black channels ”.

But that impression began to change when he traveled by train.

There, Menéndez says, "

the train is not only a means of transport, it is a cultural place,

a space where one gets to know in a certain depth what the whole country is like."

enlarge photo The Hawa Mahal, one of the palaces of the city of Jaipur.

getty images

From the edge of chaos another beauty emerged thanks to the experiences through the people and their culture. After that contact on the train came the landscapes, the nature, the images that remain in his memory like

the dunes of the Rajasthan desert

: “If you let your gaze adapt, far away, the wind causes a tremor on the sand and countless stunted shrubs, which were not seen before, appear like sentinels who watch over the peace of the evening ”.

There were many more landscapes, but this one has accompanied him since then along with another where life and literature merge, and which for him is almost unavoidable:

Bundi

, where

Rudyard Kipling

wrote

Kim

(1901).

The place comes clear to his memory: "At the foot of the house where he lived and worked Sukh Mahal stretches: a vast lake, still and green, that licks the walls, and is populated by gigantic water lilies, and the water mixes with plants, glimpses of sunlight, heads of tame fish peeking out.

You stop, look and think: this is the same as a hundred or two hundred years ago.

And it is true".

To eat, always spicy

After sounds and images come flavors and smells. In his story we read how the Cuban writer goes hunting for bars and restaurants where the locals eat in order to truly feel in India. There were so many that to name a few would force him to a reconstruction work that is not possible now. In return, he offers a couple of vital tips on how to eat well and protect yourself: “

Don't avoid the spicy

, as much as possible, as it protects against germs and bacteria. The street stalls are a must-have experience, much safer than certain restaurants since the production of the product is seen and they have a lot of rotation. The water where you wash a fruit can be more harmful than eating the fruit directly without washing.

Don't use ice to cool drinks

. "

With this recipe in your luggage, you can start a small route through India. His recommendation is clear. It is around the state of Rajasthan, the largest and located in the northwest of the country, which includes the following cities with their flashes of memories: “Bundi, where there is a huge abandoned palace taken by monkeys, and you have to walk around it brandishing a stick to defend you.

Udaipur

, which has an impressive lake in the center of which stands an old white palace [now the

Taj Lake Palace hotel

].

Jaisalmer,

with a huge walled citadel.

Pushkar

, holy city, with

ghats

, or doors, around a lake, and where everyone mixes under the sun of Hindu ceremonies.

And a visit to

Agra

, already in the State of Uttar Pradesh, with its obligatory stop at the

Taj Mahal

”.

This is his India, with its maelstrom of life and beauty under construction and eternal metamorphosis.

The charms of Jaipur

Capital of Rajasthan and a world heritage site since 2019, Jaipur is known as the pink city for the tone of its buildings. Its construction began in 1727, by Sawai Jai Singh II, on a plain confined to two square kilometers within a wall with nine gates. Its urban planning in squares responds to Vedic architecture with streets surrounded by buildings supported by colonnades where commerce bustles and opens onto various squares. That was one of the objectives of its creation: commerce in the area.

It has iconic buildings such as the City Palace, the Hawa Mahal or Palace of the Winds, the Jantar Mantar Observatory, the Albert Hall Museum and a series of bazaars from different historical moments.

“The city shows an amalgamation and an important exchange of ideas in the late medieval period.

In urban planning, an exchange of ancient Hindu, Mughal and contemporary Western ideas that resulted in its shape, ”describes the Unesco Office in New Delhi.

And around it, hills with various forts guard the city

Find inspiration for your next trips on our Facebook and Twitter and Instragram or subscribe here to the El Viajero Newsletter.